Oblivion
by Cirocco
Summary: A series of loosely-related vignettes of mostly George Weasley, post-DH.
1. Recordame

**Recordame**

_…**Recordame**, and then it starts recording you onto the scroll, just like the accounting ones do. I'm doing mine first, yeah? Yeah so listen, you can name a son after me, but if you name one of your daughters Frederica I'll come back from the grave and kick you. And I'm not naming mine Georgina if you snuff it._

_What, you'd name your daughter Fred? Merlin you're drunk._

_Am not, I just took Sober-up. Wills aren't binding if you're pissed, y'know. That other glass is for you when it's your turn._

_Seriously though, c'n you imagine, your daughter gets to Hogwarts and McGonagall reads out "Freddie Weasley" and says "Is that short for 'Frederica'" and she says "No, it's Fred. Fred Weas-"_

_Fred _Brunhilda_ Weasley? Oi! Show some respect for the dead, wanker!_

_Bugger, it's been recording me this whole time. I'll go back and get rid of this shite later. Now shut up, let's get this over with._

_All right, if I die, George gets everything, everybody else can come pick three things out of the shop, no price limit. Yeah, you heard right, Ron. If we've both kicked, and nobody thinks they can run the shop, either donate it to Zonko 'cause he can surely use the ideas, or sell it off and donate half the proceeds to - no, come on, mate, not the Squid._

_Because they'll have to do it if I say it officially. A laugh's a laugh but we are talking Galleons here._

_Donate to an orphanage. Not the Squid. And Harry gets to decide which orphanage, 'cause he's the orphan who gave us our start. Oops. Well, hopefully if Mum didn't know about that yet, she won't mind finding out like this. All right, what else?_

_Right, the funeral, well this is a bucket of cheer. Why'd we decide to do this again?_

_Yeah, I know, not your idea, you're going to live forever. Well the funeral, I dunno, have a party or something, don't go all depressing on me. And if anybody calls me Frederick in a eulogy, I'll haunt them. Also, no wearing black. Fuchsia is a lovely colour, goes smashingly with ginger, and if anybody's hung over it'll be especially painful and serve as a lesson on the dangers of overindulgin- oi! That hurt, you arse!_

_And that's it, Fred Weasley, sound mind and body, and all that._

George reached out to roll the parchment back up, and gave a start as Fred's voice began again.

_No, it's not over, George, I'm just doing this part without you here to take the mickey out of me._

_Any of my family that's still around, I'm glad you made it. I'll miss making your lives a little more interesting, and I'm sorry I won't get to see the next generation and tell them embarrassing stories from all your childhoods. Dunno what kind of dad I would've been, but I think I would've made a decent uncle. Might've learned how to pull roses out of my arse at parties, even._

_Mum and Dad, thanks. We weren't the most grateful sorts, but I have to say you surviving to our adulthood without drowning either of us makes you pretty remarkable parents, even if you hadn't raised another five kids as well. Love you both._

_George, if you're still alive and I'm not, I'm really sorry, mate. But I'm glad one of us made it through and I'm glad it was you, 'cause I think you'll do the surviving twin thing a lot better than me. Ask Lee about that sometime. Erm, preferably when you're both piss-drunk. And tell Lee to look out for you, all right?_

_I love you, Georgie. Make 'em all laugh again, all right? For me. And for you._

_Cheers._

The parchment hung in the air before them all, silent, then George reached for it and rolled it up again.

**ooo000ooo**

**Author's Note:** This is actually part of a Fic That May Never See the Light of Day which is slowly growing on my hard drive. It's a George-centric genfic, no pairings, loosely related to Severance, with a definite plot and place where I want it to go. The ending is all written and everything. But it looks like it might take a while to get to said ending, and I have an absolute phobia about starting anything I can't finish, so I wasn't going to post any of it. Then I remembered that in my previous fandom I once had over 100 pages of bits and pieces of a fic that never went anywhere, and I never posted it and now I regret it because some of the pieces weren't so bad.

So I'll probably be posting random snippets of this fic here. So that even if it does die a lonely death, at least bits of it will have seen the light.

Think of it as a series of loosely-related vignettes for now. If I get my act together enough to make a go of it, the vignettes will end up fitting into an actual fic. Otherwise, they're (mostly) just glimpses into George's life, post-Fred.


	2. April Fool's

**April Fool's**

Ron yawned, wishing he hadn't left all the trick wands till the end of the day. He finished charming the third dozen and glanced over at George, who was reading through a long scroll of parchment with a distracted air and making markings in the margins. "What are you doing?"

"Contract renewal. Eller's Ethers."

"Oh, you were going to teach me how to do those," Ron reminded him, grateful for a chance to abandon the trick wands, and plonked himself down next to George. George gave him a startled glance, then looked resigned and sighed.

"You don't have to," Ron said, clueing in. Apparently George was having a bad moment. George during a bad moment equaled stay the hell away, mostly, because he got irritable if he didn't get the space he needed to pull himself back together.

"No, you're right, you may as well learn. It doesn't come up very often, but it's always a bit of a hassle. You may as well share the pain."

"Thanks ever so," Ron said dryly.

"Right, so first you need to look over the previous year's accounts for the products the store supplies us with or buys from us," George began dully, and Ron sighed inwardly. This was supposed to be _fun_. It was a joke shop, after all. And sometimes it was fun - a lot of fun - but sometimes it really seemed like being here and doing this work only underscored how much George had lost.

Ron brought his attention to the contract, following as George walked him through the process of contract renewal, both of them quite bored. George had once said Fred had actually liked this kind of thing. Who would've ever guessed that of the two of them, George was the more creative and impulsive, and Fred was the detail-oriented one. Fred had always been the louder one, the one who seemed to initiate most of their schemes and jokes. Funny that the internal workings of the duo had been so different from what it looked like on the surface.

"...and then the last part, the renewal date." George sighed again. "And..." he paused and then seemed to shake himself, sitting up a bit straighter. "Right. Now here's the part they don't tell you right away when you get into this business," he said briskly. "With most contracts, you just confirm the renewal date and that's it. But. See the date on this one?"

Ron looked at the line at the bottom. "April fir-" he broke off with a sharp pang, but George merely nodded.

"That means you're dealing with a fellow prankster. For most businesses we work with, it's just a regular contract. When the renewal date is April Fool's, it's like a code of honour or something, you are obliged to prank one other. The point is to put one item in the contract that you don't actually mean. That item will be stricken, and the rest of the contract will go as written. Now, different people approach it different ways; some make the joke item fairly obvious, like Bristol Funsupplies, who always set the delivery date of one item on June thirty-first." He rolled his eyes. "High humour value there. You can really tell they take this tradition seriously. With others, you've got to look carefully to find it."

"So which is it in this contract?"

"You figure it out."

"D'you know what it is?"

"Yeah. Go find it."

Ron went through the contract a second time, and then again, ignoring George's growing smirk, but for the life of him couldn't think of anything that looked off.

"Give?" said George.

"Give," Ron said glumly.

"Item six. They agree to pay full price for our Winter Daydream Scent, provided we use only Essence of Hairless Ookpik in the base."

"How's that a joke?"

"_An Ookpik is nothing but hair. If you shave him, he isn't there._ We'd drive ourselves spare trying to fill the order."

"What if you could do it?"

"You can't, not for this one."

"Sometimes you might."

"Well, if you're able to fulfill the joke item, you can strike out any other item and the other side has to perform the rest of the contract anyway. You could even strike out the part where you paid them, but nobody would actually do that; bad for ongoing business relationships." He smiled. "The first year, Phillpot's Potty Puffskeins was late with shipments about four times, and once they tried to tell us their Newt's Eye pet food was fresh when it was actually molding. French Newts, specially fermented, they told us. So when we got their new contract, Fred decided he'd get them back. Item twelve said, 'The first payment of the year shall be delivered to Gringott's by a proprietor of Wheezes wearing nothing but a smile.' And it was."

"He didn't," said Ron.

"He did." George grinned. "'Course, before going, he stole some hair from old Phillpot, and Polyjuiced into him. I still say it wasn't worth it - not only did it taste foul, but Phillpot's ninety years old, had severe heartburn, and outweighed Fred by ten stone. Fred swore he could still feel the extra pounds jiggling days later. Traumatic, he called it."

Ron snickered. "And what did you strike out on their contract?"

"Any penalty or interest on late payments. We never used it, but it was fun knowing they'd be sweating every three months, wondering if they'd get our payment on time. We were one of their biggest customers."

"I'd guess he didn't try the same joke the next year?"

"Oh, he did. But he specified that the payment had to be delivered sans Polyjuice, in daylight, no concealment charms or spells of any kind."

"Ah."

"So of course Fred did it anyway."

"_Starkers?_"

"As the day he was born."

"Down Diagon Alley?"

"Whistling. And cheerfully waving at passersby."

"Wasn't he arrested?"

"Well somebody had stolen hair from old man Phillpot the previous year and streaked down the alley, right? Now, I never actually _told_ the Auror who came into the shop and tried to arrest me for indecency that somebody must've nicked some of my hair and used it in Polyjuice. So if that's what he wrote in his report, I've no idea why." He chuckled. "And if the dozen or so patrons who told him I'd been in the shop the entire time neglected to mention that we were twins... well, I wouldn't say they deliberately _tried_ to misdirect the Auror. It was probably just all a big misunderstanding, I'm sure."

Ron shook his head, chuckling.

"So, there you go. The other thing that makes this even more fun is that of course April Fool's is the biggest business day of the year for joke shops. So the very date that the renewal goes through, most of us are too busy to really check that everything's going according to contract. It all works out, though. Nobody gets seriously hurt."

"It's that big a day?"

"Huge," George said seriously. "Our first year we ran out of a third of our stock before noon. Last year we raked in Galleons like you wouldn't believe. Which was a bloody good thing, as we had to go into hiding not long afterwards. It's why we didn't take as big a loss as we might've. We hadn't even deposited in Gringott's, just kept it ready to take with us."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Don't know how big it'll be this year, but with the war over, people are spending a lot of money. So I'll be hiring an extra worker or two to help that week, have the shelves fully stocked, go all out. We'll open early and close late. Don't worry, I'll leave all the instructions with you and Verity."

"Aren't you going to be there?"

George looked back down at the contract. "No," he said shortly.

"Where're you going?"

"The Apothecary's making me a twenty-five hour dose of Dreamless Sleep," he said casually, making a few more notes on the parchment. "I'll take it at 11:30 the night of March 31, wake up half past midnight on April 2, no fuss, no muss, just skip the whole bloody thing." George squinted at an item, crossed something out and scribbled in the margin. "Don't worry, I asked and it's perfectly safe. Though you're welcome to check on me if Mum says you have to."

Ron swallowed hard and there was a silence for a few minutes, as George put the finishing touches on the contract and sealed it and Ron wished there was something he could say or do.

"It'd be rough, wouldn't it," he said inanely.

"Yeah."

He fidgeted for a moment, wishing he had some way of getting George to talk, but George didn't talk unless he wanted to. And Ron had no idea how to get him to want to, so he decided to babble, because maybe he'd bollix it up but sometimes staying silent also bollixed things up, didn't it?

"I... I'm sorry. I wish - d'you want to... bloody hell. Is it just that it'd be rough, celebrating without him? Or not knowing whether to celebrate or not..." and perhaps he should really just not talk, because George was staring at the parchment in front of him blankly.

George looked up, searching Ron's eyes for something.

"It's not the party. Or lack thereof," he finally said slowly. "It's not that. We've done birthdays since then, you know. We had Ginny and Percy and Mum and Dad." He cleaned out his quill, tapping it absently on the edge of the desk. "And what a joy those were, learning how to buy presents by myself. It's not that. It's the date itself. What it'll mean."

"What?" Ron asked quietly.

George shook his head. "It's... it's stupid." He took a deep breath. "It'll mean I'm really not a twin any more. Save your breath, I know I haven't been in a long time, I'm pretty well aware of that. But it's..." he trailed off, stared at the table. "When you're a twin, you have a brother or sister who's the exact same age as you. And I won't, not any more." He swallowed. "I'll be twenty-one, and my twin will be twenty. And then I'll be twenty-two, and twenty-three, and thirty... and he'll still be twenty. Someday I'll get married and maybe even have kids. And he'll still be twenty, getting farther and farther away." His voice roughened on the last word and he stopped, biting his lip.

Ron swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"They say time heals all wounds," George said softy. "But how can... what the hell do they know? 'Cause I can still hear his voice - and not just 'cause mine is the same - but I can still tell what he'd think or say or do about just about anything, and even if it... if it hurts, at least it's still _there._" He stopped and cleared his throat. "But it's going to be there less and less the more time goes on. There's already been so many things that've happened where I can't imagine what he would've said about them, because he just never went through them." He looked up, and Ron felt a stab in his chest at the tears in George's eyes. "How do you celebrate your kid sister's coming of age when everyone's still grieving? How d'you celebrate your older brother's birthday when he's finally back in the family and you _know_ you would've done something amazing... and probably embarrassing... before - before everything went to shit?" He drew in a shaking breath.

"Sometimes it feels like we should all be OK now," Ron said, his own voice a bit hoarse. "Used to it, or something. But we're not, are we?"

"More like with every day there's more things that he's missed. The list just gets longer."

Ron nodded, not trusting his own voice. They were silent for a long moment, before Ron ventured to speak. "I... I sometimes forget. That he's gone. It's like him _not_ being here is normal. And then it feels awful, because how can it be normal?"

George nodded.

"But I'm still not used to you being on your own," Ron said, not knowing if this was making George feel the slightest bit better, but George had said enough times that he hated people censoring themselves around him. "It's so bloody wrong."

George nodded again, still looking down. "'s too much, you know? And it's bloody stupid," he wiped at his eyes impatiently. "I could blow up a cauldron tomorrow and this'll all be a moot point, but I keep thinking, someday I'll turn forty-one and I'll have been alive as a singleton longer than I was ever a twin, and _fuck_, that's depressing." He bowed his head and covered his eyes, taking a few deep breaths, and Ron started to wonder if maybe keeping his mouth shut might have been the cleverer option after all.

"Augh, listen to me," George said irately. "Filling out a bloody contract and I'm," he made a vague impatient gesture at himself, wiped his eyes quickly. "Right, George, you berk, get on with it," he muttered under his breath.

"I... I'm sorry. I shouldn't've said anything."

"You think if nobody talks about it, I'm not thinking it?" George said bitterly. "That might work for Charlie. Not so much for me."

Ron nodded, and hesitantly touched George's shoulder. "I just wish... there was some way to make this better. For any of us."

George shrugged and gave him a wan smile. "We just have to keep pushing through, I suppose. Come on, let's finish up here and go home."

**ooo000ooo**

**Author's Note:** Ookpik, by the way, is Inuit for "snow owl." They were very popular as children's toys a while back, and usually made of a round ball of fluff with two eyes and a beak. Dennis Lee, a Canadian poet, made up a poem about them, which started with "An Ookpik is nothing but hair. If you shave him, he isn't there."


	3. Seven Potters

**Seven Potters**

"All right, up we go!"

Arthur kicked off, not needing to look around him to be acutely aware of all of his boys. Fred's arms around his waist, Bill with Fleur to his right, George with Remus to his left, Ron with Tonks directly in front of him. And Harry - the real one - at his far right, with Hagrid. He breathed deeply, keeping himself calm as they rose, grateful beyond imagining that they'd been able to keep Ginny from joining them despite her tantrums, that Charlie was safe among his dragons, that Percy was-

This was not the time to be thinking of Percy.

Two hours, maximum, he reminded himself. He and Fred would fly to the safehouse in Staines, grab their Portkey, and get back to the Burrow in time for dinner. Although he would probably skip dinner, now he thought of it, in favour of bed. He'd been a nervous wreck ever since Mad-Eye had come up with this insane plan and his boys had all jumped at the opportunity to be involved in it, and hadn't slept a wink last night.

Maybe he'd just sleep till tomorrow night. That should do it.

And at that moment all hell broke loose.

"My God-" Arthur breathed in, horrified, as the seven Harrys and their protectors were surrounded by a swarm of at least thirty Death Eaters.

"Dad! _Protego!_"

And the curses and counter-curses were coming thick and fast, the air was alive with them, and Arthur shut down everything but the immediacy of what they were doing. Get away. Get Fred out of here alive. Don't think about the others, there's no time, all of them are proven fighters except for Mundungus. He turned, avoiding a Death Eater, felt his son who wasn't Harry push his head down, felt a curse whistle right past him - something shattered, close by, two curses smashing against each other, oily remnants flitting past as they veered, and it would've been better to have Fred doing the flying, he was a brilliant Beater after all, whereas Arthur's flying days were behind him - but then again, Fred appeared to be pretty good at fighting as well. Arthur pushed down everything but narrow focus of duck, wheel, dip, try to get away, as Fred threw curse after curse and shield after shield, and there was shouting and screaming around them, he was pretty sure he'd seen two pairs fly away with nobody in pursuit, no idea who was who any more, other than Harry was in the motorcycle and a part of Arthur that wasn't fully engaged in the battle suddenly wondered if that had been such a wise move, making him unique among the Harrys, but there was no time to think, it was just duck and wheel and let Fred do the fighting-

Then Fred stiffened and gave a strangled shout, and Arthur's heart clenched in panic.

"Fred! Are you-"

Fred grabbed the broom handle and forced them around, and Arthur saw as if in slow motion Harry right below them, blood flowing shocking scarlet down his neck, and he barely suppressed a shout of dismay and started to head down to help, quickly realizing he couldn't do that, the plan was-

Harry wasn't on the motorcycle. Harry was on a broom with Remus.

Not Harry.

George.

Arthur's heart stopped and he veered down, heading towards his son, whose unfamiliar green eyes were open wide, face grey, clutching on to Remus, blood gushing down-

"NO! Dad!!" Fred had turned the broom around again, and shouted into his ear, firing off curses in between shouts. "NO! You can't! Stick with the plan!" Arthur turned and gaped at him. "Leave him to Remus, Remus knows what he's doing!" Fred fired off a few more curses, gave Arthur a hard shake. "DAD! Fuck's sake, come on! We have to draw them away!"

Arthur swallowed hard and wrenched himself back into doing what he was supposed to be doing, flying, heading towards their safehouse, forcing his brain to remember plans and destinations and focus on avoiding curses and helping Fred, forcing away all thoughts of how Fred's Harry-voice was strained as he fired off hexes determinedly. Damn, but he was good - curses and protection spells Arthur had totally forgotten, Fred was doing them all, one after another after another, coldly, precisely, no hint of laughter in his grim voice, no pause to cheer as he hit a Death Eater and the Death Eater dropped away, and it had all become timeless and he had no idea whether they'd been flying and fighting for minutes or hours - and then they were clear.

They were at the safehouse. Through the wards. Thank God. They landed and practically fell off their broom, both gasping for air. Arthur sat and put his head in his hands, his whole body shaking.

"Mr. Weasley?" a young blond woman in ripped jeans and pink robes came running up to them, stopping short at the sight of both of them on the ground. "Lumos!"

Arthur squinted at her through the sudden light, trying to remember her name, but she wasn't talking to him.

"We're all right, Verity," said Fred, and stood up, holding out his hand to Arthur, who took it and stood.

"You missed your Portkey, what happened?" said Verity, leading them into a small house.

"They knew. They were waiting for us," Fred said grimly, and Verity gasped. He glanced over Arthur. "All right, Dad?"

"Yeah, of course-" he checked over Fred, saw a bruise under one eye and a tear in his jeans, but no other damage. He was so pale, though.

"You got hit - sorry, I didn't see that one," Fred said, his voice hoarse from shouting.

"Nothing too bad. It just itches." Arthur scratched at his arm, where the robe was smoking a bit, and scanned the sky. Nothing. They were safe.

"I've got salve for that," said Verity briskly, having quickly brought her shock under control, leading them through the back door and into a small kitchen. "And I'll make another Portkey, just wait here." She grabbed a tube from the kitchen table, handed it to Fred, and hurried off.

Safe. Silent. The only sound was their panting breaths.

"Fred?"

Fred looked up at him, Harry's face white as snow, swallowing hard. Arthur noted his hands were shaking.

"Were you hurt anywhere else?"

"No, nothing - most of the curses just flew past me-" said Fred, blinking rapidly. He handed Arthur the salve. "Erm. Nothing. You?"

Arthur glanced over himself again. Nothing. A trickle of blood on his finger, no idea from what. He pushed up his sleeve, rubbing on the salve.

Fred was staring at the table, shivering, suddenly sitting down.

"Dad." He looked up at Arthur, his voice unsteady. "We have to – we have to go back."

"No," Arthur said after a moment's hesitation. "You were right. We can't. It wouldn't do any good, and would probably do more harm."

"But-"

"The whole point of you doing this was to draw attention away from Harry. The Polyjuice will wear off soon. Right now they're probably still looking for somebody who looks like me and a Harry. They don't know who the real one is. Even if we could find the others, once you've changed, if we go back they can cross us off the list and concentrate on finding Harry."

Fred's green eyes were wide as he stared at Arthur, disbelieving. "But George – he was hurt!"

"I know that," Arthur said, his stomach turning over even as he fought to keep his voice calm and steady. "But we can't help him. He had Remus with him."

"One person fighting and flying, Dad! If we-"

"We don't even know where he is, Fred! If we get out from under the wards here, we'll just put ourselves in trouble, and might draw them to wherever George and Remus are!"

"We can't just _sit_ here!!" Fred shouted, getting to his feet.

"We bloody well can!!"

"How the hell can you say that, when it's George-"

"I can say that because this is more important than George or me or you!" he shouted back. "This is what it means to be in the Order, Fred!! It means you put yourself at risk and you don't bugger up the plan just because somebody gets hurt! You wanted to be part of the Order, you wanted to join in the fight - this is what it means! And if you can't handle that, you don't belong here!"

Fred suddenly doubled over, face scrunching in pain, and gasped as he began to change. Arthur gripped his shoulder hard as the change was completed, and Fred panted, his head down, waiting for his form to stabilize.

"Right. I'm all right," he said, looking like himself again. Arthur's heart stabbed at him – was George turning back into himself right now? Or was he...

Arthur choked, turning away, and Fred gripped his arm.

"Dad."

Arthur shook his head, unable to speak.

"Did you see him?" Fred asked, his voice very quiet.

"Yeah."

Blood flowing down, eyes wide, unable to help himself. Blood, so much blood.

"He was... he was still conscious. He was holding on to Remus," Fred said, his voice shaking a bit.

"I know," Arthur said, his heart racing and a lead weight in his stomach. "Remus is experienced. He's in good hands."

Fred nodded as they both struggled to make each other believe what they were saying.

"I wish..." Fred cleared his throat. "I wish I hadn't told you to leave them."

"You were right. I'm glad you did. George understood what he was getting into."

Fred looked at him, his eyes huge and haunted. "Did he?"

"You've both wanted to be in the Order since you came of age," Arthur said. "This is what the Order does. This is what we risk," he stopped as his voice broke, and he closed his eyes briefly.

Fred nodded, swallowing hard.

"What would you want him to do?" Arthur said. Fred looked up. "If it was you who was hurt?"

"Stick to the plan," Fred said without hesitation.

Arthur nodded.

"Dad... I can't do nothing."

"Pray, then."

Fred blew out his breath impatiently, but Arthur was perfectly serious.

It wasn't that he was a particularly religious man. He kept his relationship with God to himself, and didn't wear it on his sleeve. But he did pray, sometimes. He'd prayed every time Molly had given birth. When Charlie was gored by a dragon on his first year at the reserve. When Percy got dragonpox. When Ginny was taken, when he'd been attacked by the snake, when Ron was poisoned, when Bill was attacked. And now.

He sat down and bowed his head, clearing his mind. Reached for mental quietude, for a connection to the presence he'd thanked for each of his children, and turned to in so many difficult times.

Please, protect George. Please, let all my boys be safe. Bill, Fred, George and Ron, more than half of my children were on this mission and I have never needed your help so much in my life.

Let Bill and Ron be all right. Let everyone be all right, Fleur and Hermione and Harry as well. And Remus, Tonks, Hagrid, Kingsley, Alastair and even Mundungus.

Let them all be safe. Let them all survive. Let Harry be safe, so that the risk and the price we pay is worth it.

Let George be all right. Let him be waiting for us all patched up, Molly fussing over him.

He quailed for a moment at the thought of Molly's face when she saw George. Didn't let himself imagine what she'd look like if he-

Let George be all right, please, let him be all right, let all my boys be all right.

And if George isn't all right... his heart gave a thud that felt like a knife wound.

If he isn't all right.

Let us be strong enough to get through it. Let Fred be strong enough to survive it. Let us know how to help him. Because if you take George, you might as well kill Fred too.

He recoiled from that thought with a shudder.

No, I don't mean that. But it'll hurt him so badly, and I can't...

He thought for a moment of his laughing boys, so infuriating and careless and dangerous and full of joy. The thought of one of them never laughing again, the other one dead, was more than he could tolerate and he opened his eyes.

Fred had bowed his head and closed his eyes, whether in prayer or just in deep thought, Arthur didn't know. He gazed at his son, fear coursing through him.

For all his joy and laughter and love, Fred had a dark streak running through him. A vicious side that only George could soften. The thought of Fred without that calming influence made Arthur shiver. He'd be in such pain, he'd be so lost, and he'd lash out at them all; probably at himself as well.

He felt a surge of protectiveness for the boy next to him, this young man he'd raised, who lived to entertain and infuriate everybody around him, with George by his side or right behind him.

What would Fred do, if he had nobody to lead, nobody beside him? What would happen to him? Who would be able to help him, get him through the loss?

"It's ready," Verity said half an hour later, placing a butterbeer bottle on the table in front of them. "It'll activate some time in the next ten minutes - sorry, it's not very precise, I made it too fast-"

"No that's all right, Verity. Thanks," said Fred, and Arthur nodded. That had been the longest half hour Arthur had ever spent, because this time there wasn't anybody to ask what had happened, as when Ginny had disappeared, or to talk to about injuries, as when Bill was wounded. This time there had been nothing to do but sit with Fred, both of them silent and terrified, waiting for Verity to make a Portkey to send them home.

"Let's go," Fred said hollowly, standing. Fred's hand was white on the bottle, and Arthur could feel him shaking.

"Dad," he said, his voice so low Arthur could barely hear him. "If he's... I don't think I want to know."

"I don't think I do either," Arthur admitted softly.

They avoided each other's gaze, and gripped the Butterbeer bottle, Fred's free hand gripping Arthur's so hard it hurt.

"Mr. Weasley?"

"Yes?" Fred and Arthur answered Verity together.

"Please - you'll let me know, as soon as you can, how Mr. Weasley's doing?" she asked, and Fred nodded just as the room started to spin and the Portkey dragged them off. A moment later they were in the yard at the Burrow, still holding on to the bottle.

"Please, please," Fred whispered to himself, his eyes closed. "Please." He took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and nodded to Arthur.

"All right. Let's go."


End file.
